On the night before this year’s Tony Award nominations were announced last month, San Diego theater designer and creator David Israel Reynoso had what he describes as a “surreal” dream where he heard his name being announced among the nominees.
What may have seemed like wishful thinking became blissful reality a few hours later when Reynoso was indeed honored on the morning of April 30 with a Tony nomination for his costume designs for the new Broadway musical “Water for Elephants.” It’s not only the 43-year-old Serra Mesa resident’s first Tony nomination, it’s also his Broadway debut.
The cast of Broadway’s “Water for Elephants,” featuring David Israel Reynoso’s Tony-nominated costume designs.
(Matthew Murphy/Matthew Murphy)
After nearly 20 years designing costumes, scenery and immersive theater shows in San Diego and at American regional theaters, in London and off Broadway, Reynoso has cracked into the top tier of American theater design.
In a phone interview Monday, Reynoso said he was still “over the moon” about the nomination.
“When I heard my name, I started crying,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. It means so much. I’m very grateful. I know it sounds overly cliché but the nomination has meant everything. The people I’m nominated with are people I look up to, and to see my name among theirs was so impactful.”
The other four nominees in the category for Best Costume Design of a Musical are Dede Ayite for “Hell’s Kitchen,” Linda Cho for “The Great Gatsby,” Tom Scutt for “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” and Paul Tazewell for “Suffs.” Although Reynoso and each of these famed designers received nominations, he said creating the costumes for these shows was a team effort.
“I share the success of the costume design with my incredible team of associates and assistants, as well as all the exceptional artists brought the costume design to life,” he said.
Paul Alexander Nolan as August, center, in Broadway’s “Water for Elephants,” featuring David Israel Reynoso’s Tony-nominated costume designs.
(Courtesy of Matthew Murphy )
Reynoso said he owes his nomination to Jessica Stone, the Tony-nominated director of “Water for Elephants.” They worked together on three shows at the Old Globe. Then in 2018, she recruited Reynoso to design costumes for the world premiere of “Water for Elephants.”
“When this opportunity came along, she said ‘I think you’d be really great to make it happen,’ for which I’m so grateful and honored,” he recalled of the invitation.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the premiere of “Water for Elephants” in Atlanta didn’t happen until last June. But then the show made a fast track to Broadway, where it opened March 21.
Reynoso said he was so caught up in getting the show ready for Broadway this past fall and winter, he was stunned at how enthusiastically audiences embraced the show.
“We were so focused into what it is to create that we had tunnel vision and our blinders on,” he said. “It wasn’t until the first preview when he had an audience and we heard the roar of their applause that I was emotionally overwhelmed in the moment.”
Based on a 2006 novel of the same name, the musical “Water for Elephants” is a memory tale about Jacob Jankowski, an elderly man looking back on his early days as the veterinarian for a traveling circus during the Great Depression.
In designing the costumes, which evolved between the Atlanta and New York productions, Reynoso said he worked closely with Stone to realize her artistic vision for the show.
A scene from the Broadway musical “Water for Elephants,” featuring costumes by San Diego’s David Israel Reynoso.
(Courtesy of Matthew Murphy)
“She managed to do something where nothing felt overly embellished,” Reynoso said. “It’s tempting for all of us to create work that we need to over-embellish and flex wherever we can. But the great confidence she had led us to create something that felt very genuine and heartfelt and led by story. She really set the table to feel that way and it allowed us to create our best.
For example, the color palette for the costumes in the first act is mostly muted to reflect the scarcity of the Depression era and the ordinary lives of the circus workers offstage. That allows for the big-wow moment when the circus performers finally don their dazzling costumes.
“We wanted that end-of-Act-One moment when we get to experience the grand spectacle of the full-on circus. We wanted that to feel so exuberant and colorful,” he said. “In order for us to earn that moment, we need to feel more human leading up to that.”
Reynoso also used colors to represent themes in the story. When the cruel ringmaster August seeks to control his wife, horse trainer Marlena, Reynoso used the color red in their costumes to transmit their connection. But when Marlena meets Jacob and they feel an immediate connection, they’re both wearing blue.
“There was a lot of color calibration in this show,” he said. “Growing up in Mexico, I was surrounded by color and loved the idea of the emotional tonality of it.
San Diego theater designer David Israel Reynoso.
(Courtesy of Stacy Keck)
Reynoso was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the child of a White mother from Texas and a Mexico-born father who grew up in the U.S. He was 12 when they moved to Texas.
As a small boy, he dreamed of one day becoming a Disney Imagineer, where he could build theme park rides and immersive experiences. Instead, he studied scenic and costume design at Boston University and then landed a job after college in the costume department at American Repertory Theatre (ART) in Cambridge, Mass.
His big break arrived in 2009 when London’s Punchdrunk immersive theater company brought to ART its production of “Sleep No More” — a walk-through adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” — and Reynoso was asked to design the costumes. He won an OBIE award for his designs, and he has continued to work with Punchdrunk on several productions around the world in the years since.
In 2011, Reynoso moved to San Diego and a year later was hired as a costume artisan at the Old Globe. In 2013, he launched his freelance design business, creating original costumes, scenery and exhibitions for theaters and museums. He also runs an immersive and bilingual theater company in San Diego named Optika Moderna, which has presented four site-specific shows in La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival, including the ambitious and acclaimed “La Lucha” in 2023.
A scene from Optika Moderna’s “La Lucha” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego – Downtown.
(Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse)
Reynoso’s resume is packed with design credits from the La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe. Among the Globe shows for which he designed costumes or scenery are: “Hair,” “Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “The Tempest,” “Constellations,” “As You Like It,” “Time and the Conways” and “Double Indemnity.” At the Playhouse, he designed costumes or scenery for “Put Your House in Order,” “At the Old Place,” “Tiger Style,” “Kingdom City” and “Queens.”
He has also designed both the costumes and scenery for a handful of productions, including the Playhouse’s “Chasing the Song” and “Healing Wars” and the Globe’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
While he’s elated to be recognized in New York and is looking forward to the Tony Awards ceremony on June 16, Reynoso said he’s happy with the life he has built in San Diego.
He and his ex-wife amicably co-parent their children, ages 6 and 9, and he’s in a very happy partnership with Arturo Garcia, a San Diego-based marketing manager. Reynoso said that without the support of his partner, ex-wife and children, he couldn’t accept months-long out-of-town jobs like “Water for Elephants.”
For now, Reynoso is working on the Old Globe’s upcoming “Henry 6” Shakespeare project, and he’s planning some refurbishments for his “Teatro Piñata” exhibit at the New Children’s Museum in downtown San Diego.
He’s got a few other projects in the talking stages, as well, and he’s excited about how the Tony nomination might bring other new opportunities his way.
Until then, he’s just going to relish the moment.
“I’m amazed at the outpouring of congratulations by so many people,” he said. “It’s both extremely meaningful and also it’s a fleeting moment, so I’m trying to drink it in.”